How to remove empty items in iPhoto Photo Stream?

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Level 1

4 points

How to remove empty items in iPhoto Photo Stream?

2 years ago, I linked both my iPad 4 and my Mac's iPhoto to Photo Stream. One year later, I decided to clean up memory, so I unlinked both from the cloud and turned off Photo Stream. I relocated many photos and deleted many others.

Recently, I linked my ipad back to the Photo Stream, and yesterday, my Mac. There's no problem with the new photos being synced. My problem is that there are so many empty photo items from 2 years ago (see photo) which I think are placeholders for photos that no longer exist on either the iPad or the Mac.

I would like to clean up these "empty items," but when I try to delete them, a popup window tells me I have to find the photos first, which I can't.

I am on a mid-2010 Mac running Yosemite 10.10, with iPhoto version 9.6.

iMac (21.5-inch Mid 2010), OS X Yosemite (10.10.2)

Posted on May 22, 2015 11:08 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Yer_Man

Level 10

162,402 points

May 23, 2015 12:21 AM in response to scottleechua

Your Library's corrupted:

Option 1

Back Up and try rebuild the library: hold down the command and option (or alt) keys while launching iPhoto. Use the resulting dialogue to rebuild. Choose to Repair Database. If that doesn't help, then try again, this time using Rebuild Database.

If that fails:

Option 2

Download iPhoto Library Manager and use its rebuild function. (In early versions of Library Manager it's the File -> Rebuild command. In later versions it's under the Library menu.)

This will create an entirely new library. It will then copy (or try to) your photos and all the associated metadata and versions to this new Library, and arrange it as close as it can to what you had in the damaged Library. It does this based on information it finds in the iPhoto sharing mechanism - but that means that things not shared won't be there, so no slideshows, books or calendars, for instance - but it should get all your events, albums and keywords, faces and places back.

Because this process creates an entirely new library and leaves your old one untouched, it is non-destructive, and if you're not happy with the results you can simply return to your old one.

Regards

TD

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